


the child king

by rangerhitomi



Series: radical dreamers [13]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M, Moment of Weakness, Past Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nasch has made up his mind, Durbe tries to pretend that he can change it. But the young king's love for his knight is not as great as his desire for revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the child king

**Author's Note:**

> May the prayer I spun towards the darkness of the frozen stars  
> Reach all the way to your distant sky...

The sun has long since set before Nasch returns from his solitude by the river. He keeps his head down, lost in thought, and barely acknowledges any of the quiet greetings from his men. He catches Durbe’s arm on the way past and murmurs something; something about  _positioning_ and  _strategy_ , but it’s clear to Durbe that Nasch is not in the right mindset to be planning anything – his eyes are scrunched up in thought, his face prematurely lined with stress. Durbe gently explains to the other soldiers that he is going to watch over Nasch, and for them to get some rest. They exchange worried looks but one by one, they head to their own tents.

_No matter the outcome, we’re proud to have served him._

Durbe waits until they’re gone to enter Nasch’s tent. Nasch stands at the small table; clenched in his hand is a small wooden figure, one of him. It breaks Durbe’s heart, watching Nasch shake his head and mumble to himself, rocking back and forth on his feet, lost in the thoughts of a broken king.

He takes the figure from Nasch’s hand and sets it gently on the table, and Nasch bows his head and rubs at his neck. He doesn’t say anything; Durbe doesn’t need him to.

He stands behind his king, his friend, and places his own hands on Nasch’s shoulders. He rubs his fingers in small circles over Nasch’s tight, knotted muscles and whispers to him.

_We need you to be strong for us, my friend._

_You need to rest._

_There’s nothing more to be done this night._

Nasch shakes his head and leans his arms on the table.

_We’re so close, Durbe. So close to avenging my kingdom. Avenging her. Why do I feel so empty?_

Revenge, Durbe wants to say; it’s because you’re focused on killing Vector. But killing Vector won’t bring Merag back. Killing Vector won’t bring back the hundreds of men, women, and children whose bodies lay in the symmetrically cobbled stone streets of Nasch’s once-beautiful kingdom, decaying every day in the piercing sunlight, half-open eyes pecked out by birds while insects devoured them from the inside.

_They’re dead because of me._

They’re dead because of Vector, Durbe tries to assure him, dead because Vector…

He doesn’t know why Vector did it. He wonders if Nasch and Vector had known each other before. If it was revenge from Vector for something Nasch said or did that drove Vector to attacking, to murdering and plundering his city.

Maybe there  _was_ a reason Nasch believed it was his fault.

Nasch traces his fingers along the route he and Durbe mapped out together, the route to the labyrinth Vector took refuge in. Straightforward, simple.

Too straightforward, too simple.

_Many are going to die for me._

_They’re proud to give their lives for you, my friend._

Nasch laughs bitterly, knocks over the figurine, which falls to the floor and cracks. He bows his head again and Durbe’s fingers move as Nasch’s shoulders shake, and he realizes Nasch is weeping again - weeping for his kingdom, weeping for his sister, weeping for the state of his soul, hell-bent on revenge against a mad king and his army of demons.

Durbe takes him in his arms and Nasch buries his face in the crook of Durbe’s neck. For a moment, Durbe remembers that Nasch is a young king, forced onto the throne prematurely, unable to go through the experiences of living as a child in a naïve world and forced to grow up entirely too quickly. The façade of strength and authority and confidence fades as Nasch wraps his arms around the knight’s body and sobs into his shoulder.

He holds the child king of the United Lands against his chest and wishes he can feel Nasch’s heartbeat through their armor, because he wants one final reminder that Nasch is alive and he fears that, come tomorrow, he will never feel Nasch’s heartbeat again.

 _Durbe,_  Nasch murmurs, and their lips touch.

 It’s… difficult, in a way, because Durbe is five years Nasch’s elder,  _my God, he’s just a child_ , and he’s a knight – a man of valor and integrity and purity, or so his oaths went – but as Nasch’s fingers find the catches on Durbe’s armor, Durbe knows that what he wants and what Nasch wants are one and the same, and he lets go of his reservations as he lets Nasch remove his armor.

It clatters to the dirt floor and it’s probably loud enough for neighboring tents to hear it, but Nasch is distracted and focused on unlacing Durbe’s loose shirt, pushing them both gently back to the pallet of blankets in the corner of the tent. Durbe tears his lips away long enough to pull Nasch’s shirt over his head and they both tumble back onto the blankets, Nasch landing on top of his knight.

Neither knows what to do from here and they gaze at one another, the knight and the child king, and Durbe feels Nasch’s desperation in the way his fingers dig into Durbe’s exposed hips, sees the sorrow in those azure spheres, and Nasch finally lowers himself and presses their bodies together.

As they find a way to fit their naked bodies together, Nasch pulls his lips to Durbe’s ear and whispers through heavy breaths,  _I wish things could have been different._

 _Maybe in another life_ , Durbe whispers back, but he doesn’t really believe it, and there’s no happiness in the afterlife for an impure knight who beds his king.

\---

A hand roughly shakes Durbe awake, and Durbe opens his heavy eyes to Nasch’s commander, kneeling by the pallet. Nasch is gone, as Durbe knew he would be, and Durbe feels the shame of being found undressed in the king’s bed as he pulls the thin blanket closer to his cool body and sits up. The commander doesn’t say anything about Durbe’s sin, about Nasch taking the wandering knight into his bed, and Durbe wonders what he must think of this outsider taking his king’s innocence away.

_Our king is gone._

_I know._

_He’s gone to Vector._

_Then we must go to him. Ready the troops._

\---

Durbe drags his heavy legs through the countless bodies littering the grassy valley, forces himself to keep his head up so he doesn’t have to look at the half-open eyes of his dead comrades, forces himself to keep from collapsing and emptying his stomach at the stench of death on all sides.

 _They’re all dead_ , he registers numbly, but he needs to get to his king, he needs…

Why was he the only one to live? What cruel reason could God have for keeping him alive to see the horrors of death, the aftermath of war?

Was this his punishment?

He almost misses it as he walks to the labyrinth. But out of the corner of his eye, through his grief, he sees it.

He falls to his knees next to his king’s body. It’s still warm as he cradles it, those eyes gazing blankly at the setting sun, the warm blood drying on his stomach. Durbe holds him and presses their lips together, except those lips are cold now, and the sky is suddenly dark, and now Nasch watches the dim stars above,  eyes showing his regret in death, and Durbe understands.

He had grown to understand that there was a Heaven for people who tried to do the right thing. A place where loved ones could be found in death, a place where hopes and dreams could be realized. A beautiful idea, if it was true.

Nasch had sought vengeance, but it was for his people. For his sister. To protect those he loved.

Durbe followed a child king to the end of the world to keep him safe.

He failed.

He followed this child of light and life and hope, of despair and death and darkness; he followed this man, filled with vengeance and pain and rage, stripped of his innocence and youthful wishes and dreams. He followed the spark of love, kindled in a dark, cold tent on the edge of Hell, extinguished by the Angel of Death’s cruel, cold hand.

He wonders if Nasch is one of those stars now.

_I hope with every beat of my heart that we will meet again someday, my friend._

He wonders if his own star someday will sparkle in the night sky, drawing its warmth and brightness from Nasch’s, shining their light together to the world.

_You lived too short a life. Your future was more than that._

He wonders if Nasch can hear his prayer. 


End file.
